


Behind the Mask

by truth_renowned



Series: One-Word Prompts [24]
Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 03:58:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12449202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/truth_renowned/pseuds/truth_renowned
Summary: Peggy deals with the news of Jack's shooting. Inspired by the Inktober prompt 'mask'.





	Behind the Mask

Jack Thompson was hanging on by the proverbial thread, doctors with somber faces speaking optimistic words to her and Daniel. The longer the doctors talked, the tighter the dread coiled inside her.

Mentions of ‘permanent lung damage’ and ‘possible brain damage’ chipped away at her like a whittler working a twig. Every swipe of their words took another layer from her resolve. She could feel the mask she wore, the one broadcasting to the world that Peggy Carter was a force to be reckoned with, starting to crack. Yet the doctors would never know the damage their words were doing.

\--------

Daniel was behind the wheel now, something for which she was grateful. It took every ounce of energy to keep herself together.

Steve was the only man to see behind the mask. She’d broken down in front of him, overwhelmed by the loss of nearly 100 men during a mission. She worried it might run him away, knowing she could be so vulnerable, but he welcomed it, saying it made her more human. 

Losing Steve nearly destroyed her, despite her inner strength that, Steve would say, was more than that of a platoon of men. She couldn't do that again. 

\--------

Daniel opened the car door for her, led her into his house. Everything was where they had left it, after finally resolving their feelings for each other, before the phone call that would send them rushing to the hospital, hoping against hope that Jack would still be alive. Before they realized the Zero Matter incident was far from over. Before she felt the mask splintering in too many places.

Since Steve, she hadn't allowed anyone else to see behind the mask. She promised herself she would never open herself like that to anyone. She had kept that promise.

Until now.

\--------

Wide chasms formed around the mouth and eyes of the mask. It was too much. Her almost dying. Daniel almost dying. Jack’s fate still to be determined. 

She was breaking the promise to herself, to always keep that mask in place. Yet when she was with Daniel, the mask’s importance faded. Perhaps it was because she was drawing from his strength. Perhaps it was because she wanted, even just for a moment, to allow him to see behind the mask. 

Once inside his house, nestled in his arms, she did something she hadn’t done since Colleen was killed.

She cried.

\--------

Powerful sobs wracked her body like blows from invisible fists. He said nothing, did nothing, other than hold her and let her work through the emotions she couldn’t hold in. Somehow he knew it was what she needed. Somehow she knew he would not hold it against her, this display of weakness. But was it weakness? Was it weakness to be free of the mask in front of the only man alive she could trust with her grief? With her heart?

She imagined the mask, broken beyond repair, slipping away.

It should have felt wrong but it felt so right.


End file.
